Photobacterium atrarenae sp. nov. a Novel Bacterium Isolated from Sea Sand

The gram-reaction-negative, motile, facultatively anaerobic, catalase-positive, oxidase-positive bacterial strain M3-4T was isolated from black sea sand and subjected to a taxonomic study. Cells of strain M3-4T have monotrichous flagella, grow optimally at 37°C and at pH 7–8 in the presence of 1–4% (w/v) NaCl and hydrolyze casein, starch and l-tyrosine. According to phylogenetic analyses using 16S rRNA gene sequences, strain M3-4T belongs to the genus Photobacterium and is most closely related to Photobacterium rosenbergii LMG 22223T (97.4%) and P. gaetbulicola KCTC 22804T (96.6%). The DNA–DNA relatedness value between M3-4T and P. rosenbergii LMG 22223T was 21.5%. The DNA G+C mol% of strain M3-4T was 53.6. The major cellular fatty acid of strain M3-4T was a summed feature 3 consisting of C16:1 ω7c and/or iso-C15:0 2-OH (35.0%), followed by C16:0 (25.4%) and C18:1ω7c (16.8%). These data suggest that strain M3-4T represents a novel species in genus Photobacterium, for which the name P. atrarenae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is M3-4T (= KCTC 23265T = NCAIM B 02414T).